MEDI-CAL Funded Deliveries Calendar Year 2005

Data Qualifications

The Medi-Cal Funded Deliveries report has been published annually since 1978. This report provides statewide as well as county-level number of deliveries by age, type of delivery, type of facility and the amount of Medi-Cal expenditures. The information source, the Pregnancy Monitoring System (PMS), an extract from the Medi-Cal paid claims files, has been only minimally updated despite significant changes in the Medi-Cal program over the past two decades.

The change with the greatest impact on delivery reporting is undoubtedly the movement of Medi-Cal eligibles into managed care systems, and the consequential non-reporting of encounters within the paid claims file. Initially this missing information was captured by linking Medi-Cal eligibility records to the hospital discharge database maintained by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Medi-Cal delivery reports based on this source were published for the years 1994-2000, 2001 and 2002. Beginning with the report for calendar year 2003, the managed care delivery information is based on a linkage between Medi-Cal eligibility records and California vital records files. The fee-for-service delivery information is obtained from the Medi-Cal paid claims files.

Although this method provides the most complete delivery information available at this time, it is likely that managed care deliveries are underreported to an unknown degree, believed to be relatively small. The reason for an undercount is that this component in the report is based on a link between Medi-Cal eligible files and birth records. Inaccuracy in personal identifiers may result in non-linking records.

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